Pages

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Backtracking: Our Wedding Ceremony

Once everyone was ready, it was time to go. We started almost on time, maybe five minutes late.

Brendan designed our wedding program fans himself. The back listed the wedding party.

We did the seating of the grandparents and parents first, but my grandmother wasn't feeling up to going down the aisle, so it was Brendan's side only.

The groomsmen, groom, and officiant walked in together, while each of the bridesmaids walked down the aisle solo. This was a good solution to having an uneven wedding party.

We didn't really intentionally plan the wedding for sunset, but it worked out nicely that way!

We had a ring-bearer (Brendan's little cousin) and five flower girls (my little cousins), and they walked down the aisle to the viola and concert harp playing "Rainbow Connection" from the muppet movie. I picked that song for Brendan's mom because she watched the muppets with her kids when they were little.

When it came to the kiddos, we told the parents what we had in mind, but let them pick out their own outfits. Everyone looked great, and no one had to buy anything specific. We had the kids sit with their parents after going down the aisle, because we figured they would like that better than standing in the heat.

I had both of my parents walk me down the aisle to honor the role each of them has played in my life. I loved having them both there.

It was really special to have our friends and family standing up with us. I really understood the true meaning of that during the ceremony. On my side, from back: Kelsey (friend since I was born), Lauren (college friend/roommate), Emily (friend since graduate school), Amanda (cousin), Annie (Brendan's sister), and Corley (friend since high school). On Brendan's side, from front: Justin, Bill, and Curtis (friend's since 2nd grade), Graham (my brother), and Cole (my friend since high school).

I wanted to include our moms in the ceremony, but Brendan didn't want a unity candle. I came up with the idea to have our moms hold onto our rings. My Mom had Brendan's ring and Brendan's mom had my ring, so they could give them to us. It was really special and had a lot of meaning too.

Ring exchange. I had something special engraved in Brendan's ring as a surprise. He didn't get to see it until after the ceremony.

Our ceremony was religious, but also light hearted. It was a nice tone for us.

And we really could not have asked for a more beautiful setting.

Brendan and I both have MFAs in creative writing--fiction. We had two of our friends from graduate school, Erica and Michael, with MFAs in poetry pick and read a poem at our wedding.

We wrote our own vows together and read each other the same vows. It was important to us to promise the same things.

Finally, it was time for the kiss!

I made a pretty crazy face here. I just couldn't believe we were married.

We were so happy! It was time for pictures. As a gift to Brendan, I only scheduled about 25 minutes for photos (Brendan doesn't like taking them). Some couples take an hour or longer, but our photographer was great, and I had no regrets about our speedy portrait session. We really wanted to enjoy our reception with friends and family: that was our priority that day, and our photographer was super respectful of this. Our guests enjoyed cocktails and music by Angelic Strings while we took photos.

Ushers (end) were Stephen (my cousin) and Aaron (Brendan's cousin).

We had the cutest wedding party ever.

And the best looking families too!

I don't know how our photographer did it, but she got everything we wanted super fast!

All photos taken by Amy Kate Photography in Austin, TX

Corley and Amanda bustled me up and Brendan grabbed a beer...we were married, and it was time for the reception...

No comments:

Post a Comment

WELCOME

Welcome to Lola & Zoe, a blog about creative, fun, and healthy living. Lola and Zoe started in February 2011, when I had the idea to write about everything that interests me, kind of like trail mix, only in a blog. This is our internet home for vegetarian recipes, creative home decor, fun arts and crafts projects, ideas for a healthy lifestyle, book and movie picks, occasional meanderings about fashion and beauty, some personal stories about teaching, life after M.F.A, homeownership, and of course, a few good miscellaneous surprises. I live in west Texas, with my wonderful husband, Brendan, and our two crazy cats, who also serve as the namesake of this blog. Happy reading!Stacy, Brendan, Lola & Zoe